(February 6, 2016 at 12:48 am)Catholic_Lady Wrote: I'm a Catholic person in an Atheist forum. Naturally, 90% of the time I'm the only one on my side of an argument. I'm sure if we were on a Christian forum, everyone would be backing me up.

Agreed, if I go to a Christian or Muslim forum, I'd be a minority there. And there are also plenty of pluralistic PC library type sites where a slight boo will get anyone booted.

Which is why in the real world outside of the internet, competing claims can quite easily settled in a lab with scientific method an no wars would that end up in.

Ok, CL, think of it another way.

If someone says that, even though they don't hate homosexual people, they don't want to be associated with homosexual people in any way (not even at work), they find their sexual deeds in bed to be an abomination to God, they recommend homosexual people should stop having sex with other people of the same sex, and they consider their homosexuality to be an illness ...

then someone responds by telling them they're bigoted or homophobic ...

Are they likely going to tell that person "yes, you're right, we are bigoted and homophobic"? Or are they likely going to deny they did make homophobic statements and maybe say things like "I love homosexual people, but I hate their sin"? If they say the latter, I will be in disbelief, saying something like "yeah, sure, you do ... "

Few people who are homophobic will admit that they are in fact homophobic. Just as few racists will admit that they are racist.

I think that these people are unable to put themselves in the shoes of other people. And I mean truly put themselves in the shoes of someone else. They lack the understanding to do it. Oh they can say they can do it. It's easy to say it. They'll bring up how they walked the walk and talked the talk and followed God's orders for them. But they can't put themselves in the shoes of someone else who has different orders simply because they're different. Not truly. They don't think what it would feel like to be told that they cannot seek love from someone who would make them happy. that they aren't allowed to find someone they love to spend the rest of their days with.

Of course this should come as no surprise. Marriage was about property with them. A man had to check the status of his wife, to make sure that his property was as sold. And if she weren't, they stoned her. If a woman was raped, she was damaged goods. To be sold to her rapist, and forced to live with him.

This is why sex before marriage was not permitted. A woman who was not a virgin was used property. No good in a business transaction. And that's all women were seen as. Commodities to be bought and sold. Virginity made a daughter worth more somehow. There was no sanctity in waiting to perform a ritual to have sex. It was all about money.

The Church produces harmful doctrine, that makes people believe that they should not be able to seek happiness. Those who attend the church are okay with this. They always have been. You can't challenge the status quo. That would be to challenge god himself. That's a large part of why we have so many denominations today. The church would only change when it had no other options. And it'll change again. In a few hundred years, the Catholic Church of the future will look nothing like the church of today. As more people grow to accept gay people, and nurture them. Including other religions who'll jump at the chance to accept people for who they are. And the people of that time will find some new group to have utter disregard for, and refuse to let go of their traditions in the name of God Almighty.

One thing that helped me in my path to becoming an atheist was seeing the church with a clear mind. Seeing that the church was a church that could not possibly have come form a loving god. And God, they describe as loving. Sometimes I wonder if they truly know the meaning.

That the Catholic Church has the sheer audacity to turn with one hand when their priests molest children and go and protect them, and then with the other hand state that gay people must be celibate for life and never find a life partner... is sheer hypocrisy. It's vile and disgusting. I see no other way to describe it. Oh the pope will go through with symbolic gestures, suggest that it's all behind them. So long as the masses believe them, that's all that matters. Belief is what matters most, after all.

They think they're helping people. Most of the time their help hurts more than it helps. How funny they say that women shouldn't have abortions and instead give the baby up for adoption, yet want to deny gay couples the ability to adopt. In fact they don't want gay couples at all. They're also against contraception, which leads to more babies (and more STD's.. but that's another topic) which leads to more kids being given up, which leads to more kids who aren't adopted and fall into the system. Gay couples, who biologically cannot conceive with one another, would be the ones who most likely want to actually adopt.

Of course nobody is going to convince Christians that they are wrong. Not even their fellow Christians. So long as they believe God said it, it is just. They are incapable of judging god's actions on their own. They judge his actions by him, and not him by his actions. And when you do that, anything can be justified.

(February 5, 2016 at 11:07 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote: I'm not here to argue with someone about the Church. I know how ya'll feel about it, and you know how I feel about it.

My objection was to Irrational accusing the guy of wanting everyone to suffer when what he actually said was "I wish everyone had a life as beautiful as mine."  

Regardless of whether you personally think his life sounds good or not, HE does think it's good. So his statement obviously doesn't mean he wants people to suffer.

I was polite and direct. Your response to me was totally evasive in that despite defending church doctrine you now choose not to argue about it. In addition you devoted half your reply (measured by number of sentences) to continuing your argument with another member.  Quite frankly, you're being disingenuous.

(February 4, 2016 at 11:39 am)athrock Wrote: Because if these "restrictions" are from God, it would be wise to follow them.

That's a big fucking "if."

Gay and doing fine in spite of being Catholic?

Why anyone would stay in a religion which openly shames them is hard for me to grasp.

And I don't care if commandments are from God. I'll follow them only if there is a good reason to do so. He can stuff it up his holy bunghole, I'm no one's whipping boy.

Oh and CL, remember in the thread about rape, if I am remembering correctly you admitted you had no clue that a male rape victim could get an erection and ejaculate. Now here you are in another thread, telling a Gay Christian it is his business and if he is ok with it...

And again, this is not about rights, but logic. You need to consider if you can get the act of rape wrong, and that scientific knowledge of how the body acts under stress, if you can get that wrong, why would you think at all that religion is helpful to him?

Now again, this isn't about Catholics, this is about what ALL religions do to human thought unfortunately. Religion gap fills then when someone comes along and says "That is not an explanation, here is the biological reality", religion has unfortunately made it hard for you to give up on old ideas and bad claims.

We don't attack your claims because we hate our fellow humans, we attack your claims because they are wrong.

We would make the same argument to a Muslim or Jew or Hindu if they were saying "I don't hate gays, but it is simply unnatural"...... It would be a mistake to assume homophobia is exclusive to Catholics, it is unfortunately an ignorance that exists in many religions.

What is really going on, is that humans simply don't understand evolution. It is merely mistaking "Yucky to me" as evil when really all it is is a difference. If you really value protecting minorities then it does really help understanding reality outside your own personal bias.

(February 6, 2016 at 8:22 am)robvalue Wrote: Gay and doing fine in spite of being Catholic?

Why anyone would stay in a religion which openly shames them is hard for me to grasp.

And I don't care if commandments are from God. I'll follow them only if there is a good reason to do so. He can stuff it up his holy bunghole, I'm no one's whipping boy.

Yep, and from the first story, it is just barking orders, no explanation. Thats what Kim Jong Un does. In western society, our officials can give orders, yea, but only by our consent and if we don't like the laws we can work to change them.

And again, believers don't understand WHY the books of Abraham were written the way they were. They were written like that because, even in polytheism, humans lived in very localized, tribal kingships. Even the Romans, even with their concepts of a Senate, they might have valued that concept, but they didn't have, like our modern government, the ability to impeach a Caesar, if they wanted to remove the top dog, they murdered him, they didn't have a legal way to remove him.

Christianity did not invent modern western government, the age of Enlightenment did in spite of Christianity. Christianity simply copied the puppet governments of Rome at first. 

In fact, if you are Catholic, you should know that the Vatican took an Obelisk that Caligula stole from Egypt, and made it part of their display in St Peter's square. Of course the institution markets that as a defeat over evil, but really all they did was simply replace one abuser for another. 

Our modern form of government in the west certainly is based on the Greeks and Romans, but it goes further and removes the absolute power of the top dog. The Greeks and Romans never had that check on power. They did make a couple of attempts to remove the idea of an immovable top dog, but that never gained any hold, so the best they could do back then was assassinate the king(which is what a Caesar is) and replace them with either another family member or someone from the wealthy class.

(February 6, 2016 at 7:13 am)Evie Wrote:

(February 4, 2016 at 11:39 am)athrock Wrote: Because if these "restrictions" are from God, it would be wise to follow them.

That's a big fucking "if."

Yep, and not only a "big if", a "big if" based no the naked assertion he exists even before you get to that old bronze age book that took fallible humans over 1,000 years to complete, with books left out, full of contradictions and scientifically absurd claims. 

If someone wants to pin their hopes on that "big if", they can. I think they could do better considering humans didn't know any better back then when they wrote them and others bought the claims in that book.

And as I said before, to follow commands blindly, or simply accept "I said so", isn't morality, it is simply following.

I am sure Kim Jong Un will treat you well if you tow the party line. 

"I now what I am doing"
"I have a plan"
"I have final say"
"I don't have to explain myself to you"
"It is your fault even though I have the power to set things up"
"If you don't understand that is your fault".

Are cop out dodges, to avoid criticism of the flawed logic. They are excuses to accept following, not explanations. 

It is basically needlessly inflicted gap filling out of a desire to have a parent protect a baby.

Saddest thing is, some people seem to want to be ordered around. Whether this is their nature, or whether it's years of conditioning is hard to say.